The Smallville Cabinet
by LaCasta
Summary: UPDATED: The head of DHHS watched the two animals cautiously. “Why are there a rat and a cat chasing one another down the hall?” House, the President's Epidemiology Advisor, attempted to look rueful. “Well, I tried to teach them volleyball, but they just
1. Default Chapter

President Lex Luthor couldn't tell which of the Furies had left a hairball on the latest piece of legislation he was due to sign, so divided a glare impartially. Megaera licked some of her personal bits, Tisiphone stretched, making sure that he got a glimpse of her claws, and Alecto licked a paw and washed behind her ear as though he wasn't even there.  
  
The President nodded. They could have left worse, as he knew from past experience, but apparently this bill only merited a half-hearted hairball.  
  
"Mr. President?" The intercom buzzed. "The NASA director is here to see you."   
  
"Right. Send him in." Lex tossed him a bottle of a beverage [contact author for product placement rates]. "Have a seat, Clark."  
  
"Hi, Lex."  
  
"Clark, I know that you appreciate the hard work that goes into it, and the risks and sacrifices that our astronauts make." Clark nodded. "Nonetheless, buzzing them with a big sign each time one of them has a birthday just makes them jumpy."   
  
"But, Lex-" Just to make her point that the alien, being claw-resistant, was a notorious cat-frustrator, Allie leapt at him, scratched a tear all the way down his shirt sleeve, then jumped back off the chair with an expression of righteous indignation.   
  
Lex took advantage of the interruption. "They're under a lot of stress and seeing you out there, without a suit and those huge feet of yours far too close to the shuttle, doesn't help. Plus, despite what years of movies have told you, fire can't burn in space, so that cake with birthday candles...when even I can't think of the symbolism, it's got to stop." As he shook his head, Clark shuffled his feet self-consciously and Lex relented. "So how's the new management doing with those safety regulations?"  
  
Clark forgot his chagrin and glowed. "It's coming along great, Lex. The new safety team is really on the ball. We've got a good multiple checks system going and Principal Reynolds is pretty scary at monitoring things.   
  
"Good work, Clark." The President gave up on checking his desk clock, since Tiss was lying in front of it with the air of a cat who means to be an immovable object, and glanced at his watch. "Come around tonight. They sent me a copy of the newest Warrior Angel game."  
  
Clark couldn't decide whether to widen his eyes in anticipation or narrow them in suspicion, so settled for leaving them as they were. "That's not supposed to be out for another two months."  
  
Lex smirked. "It's called executive privilege."   
  
Debriefings coming soon...  
  
Secretary of Agriculture Jonathan Kent  
  
VP Peter Ross  
  
FRB Chair Martha Kent  
  
GAO Head Chloe Sullivan  
  
Secretary of State Lana Lang  
  
AN: This ficlet is as much thediehard's responsibility as mine. More, if I can just talk her into accepting that. 


	2. Secretary of Agriculture Kent

"No, I'm not going to sniff your butt. I don't want to sniff your butt. I don't sniff Clark's butt, I don't sniff Chloe's butt, I do not sniff any of the Supreme Court butts. The reason for this is that I don't want to sniff anybody's butt. This includes yours." The Secretary of Agriculture grinned at the sound of the lecture he was overhearing from the Oval Office. His grin widened as he reflected that it was another case where a young Smallville resident had gotten Lex Luthor to jump through hoops.   
  
After Clark and Lana, acting separately, each brought over one of the kittens left at the Talon to find good homes, Lex had instructed security staff not to admit anybody else bearing a kitten, but to give them and the animal a ride to the Humane Society. Chloe had gotten around that one by tucking the orphaned infant kitten into her cleavage and covering up with a jacket.   
  
When she got into the mansion, she fished it out and handed it to Lex with a matter-of-fact, "Her mother, or maybe his, how are you supposed to tell with cats, anyway, got hit by a car. The others didn't make it. Dad's allergic so I can't keep her at home. She'll need bottle feeding around the clock, I figured that you could hire a nanny or something if you can't handle it. Here's a box of kitten formula. Don't let us down." By the time that Lex had realized that she had put a barely thumb-sized creature in his palm, she was gone, and he was left to bottle-feed this latest arrival. At hourly intervals.   
  
Megaera, or Meggie, as Clark had promptly nicknamed her, hadn't quite given up on the notion that Lex could be taught proper cat etiquette, since she had had so much formative time with him. Despite his seeming incapacity to learn, Meggie was nonetheless persistent with some of the basics.   
  
Any kitten who would sneak up on a sleeping Lionel Luthor to slobber on his beard, leaving it redolent of cat treats and giving Lex the opening to suggest that Lionel had sunk to new lows, stealing the tiny creature's treats to consume himself, was just fine in Jonathan's book.   
  
"Let's face it, Meg, he's a rude one," he said cheerfully as he went into the Oval Office. "I've got the briefings, Mr. President." Meggie swatted at Lex as the President tried to open the briefing book that Jon dropped on his desk, making it clear that he was not yet excused from petting her, and Lex leaned back in his chair.   
  
"Why don't you give me your quick summary? You probably put it more accurately than if it had to go through the policy people."  
  
"Well, now that we've implemented the full-impact cost analyses, there's enough support in Congress to stop the subsidies to agribiz firms."  
  
"That was your good work, you know," Lex said quietly, and Jonathan continued, rushing his words for an instant. "Well, showing that subsidies to the factory farms cost five times more in eventual impact than they provide general benefit isn't rocket science."   
  
"Besides, the rocket science is Clark's area. Well, at least the scaring the rocket scientists half to death is his." Lex had just been waiting to share Clark's latest visit to one of the shuttles and Jonthan shook his head.   
  
"At least he didn't put his foot through any of the solar panels. This time." The mental image of Superman sheepishly towing a shuttle back to safety was still quite fresh.  
  
"Okay, so the agribiz subsidies are cleared off, how's the Sustainable Farming implementation?"   
  
"I'm visiting the Dakotas tomorrow to drum up more support. Still a hard sell for some of the big ranches."   
  
Lex smirked. "I've every confidence in you. Kent charm and Kent stubbornness are hard to fight."   
  
Jonathan was proud of the fact that he'd been such a formative influence on Lex Luthor's character and taught him that scruples were vital, despite all of Lionel's lessons, both verbal and in actions. Lex knew this.  
  
Lex was proud of the fact that he'd shaped Jonathan in one important way: Jonathan could now smirk well enough to match any Luthor. Jonathan didn't know this.  
  
AN to thediehard: You know perfectly well that you wrote the best bits! 


	3. FRB Chair Martha Kent

The Chair of the Federal Reserve walked down the hall towards the Oval Office, eyes and hair bright. Under one arm, she carried documents showing all the economic trends and projections her staff had charted under her direction, and a one-page piece of paper detailing her analysis and recommendations. The other arm ended, as is usual, with a hand, and this hand ended, as was usual with her, in a small bag containing cat treats.  
  
Inside the Oval Office, Lex could time her arrival not by his schedule but by the cats' demeanor. Alecto and Tisiphone, the two tabbies, curled together in a circle, limbs wrapped around one another. Meggie lay on her back, seized his hand with her paws in a way that made it very clear that submission or laceration were his two choices, and started to suck on his little finger. No more than two seconds passed before Martha Kent came in, so Lex didn't even have time to issue his usual sardonic comments on their acting skills.   
  
As she approached the desk, Lex helplessly gestured his apology that he couldn't rise to greet her. She kissed him on the cheek and rubbed a hand along Meggie's blissful belly, pursing her lips in amusement at the rumbling purr. "Lex, I still don't know why you call those sweet cats the Furies," she commented yet again.   
  
"I suppose not." He wondered if she realized that she was in fact completing hostage negotiations when she gave Meggie one of the treats and the silvery longhair released his hand. Martha thought that Meggie was remembering how Lex bottle-fed her. Lex knew differently.  
  
The other two stretched, sniffed one another's noses, and turned figure eights around her ankles, purring and rubbing their chins against her in near-ecstasy, and they got their treats as well. Martha tickled them under their chins as Lex read the memo.  
  
"Down one-half of one percent."   
  
"It's paying off, Lex. Keeping the interest rates low is encouraging domestic infrastructure investments. It's also significantly slowing debt purchases, so we don't have to be as concerned about any group playing havoc with federal cash reserves." That had been one possibility for economic attacks against national interests, driven by previous administrations' reckless deficit spending. Vast, deliberate fluctuations in the amount of debt the government carried through its bonds could make it almost impossible to regulate interest rates and control inflation, causing investor insecurity, which usually led to wide-spread layoffs, which further disrupted the economy. "Yes, you're a good kitty," she crooned as Alecto jumped into her lap, rested her paws on Martha's shoulders, and administered a swift lick to her cheek.   
  
Meggie emitted a sweet-toned, "Mew?" and Martha reached across the desk to stroke her, as well. "Such a sweet kitten, aren't you? Who's my little girl?"   
  
"What kind of support do you think we'll get for the layoff provisions in the next sessions?" It was out of Martha's official purview but Lex relied on her finely-honed sense of economic and political quid pro quo as a balance to his own.   
  
"Hard to tell yet, but it's still worth trying." She looked at him fondly. He was going against major business interests with his efforts to get layoff riders attached to supplying government contracts. If a fiscally healthy company, he argued, put its workers on the streets, their actions typically ended up costing government money, and this should be taken into account in their bidding for government contracts. "You're doing the right thing, Lex," she said, firmly.   
  
At least she hadn't, as she'd once done in an absent-minded moment, said that he was a good kitty. Afterwards, the cats had looked like they were snickering for weeks. 


	4. A secret debriefing takes place

Addendum to the Official Archives of the Presidency of Alexander J. Luthor  
  
The Archivist has no explanation for the sudden appearance of this paper, nor for the marks which appear to be made by small, yet quite sharp teeth, on all four corners.  
  
Tissy: Mrrorwl. Have you noticed how we've managed to take over not just the Oval Office but the fics?  
  
Meggie: Prrrrrrrr. *Some* humans learn a bit faster than others about the rightful place of cats.  
  
Allie: Maow? So what's your story?  
  
Merlin: Meow. Oh, just dropping in, seeing how well we could push Bridget's buttons. Silly human still thinks that given the choice between doing what she wants us to do and doing just the opposite, we might pick what she wants us to do.  
  
Memnet: Meow. Well, sometimes, but only when it's what we really want.  
  
Meggie: Mew? Any thoughts on how we can get the claw-resistant cat-frustrator to stop it? Sometimes he moves faster than us, and that's wrong, too.  
  
Allie: Trrrl. But he is definitely useful for warming the spots we want to lie on if they're not yet cat preferred temperature and if he doesn't cheat, he's very good at playing cat games.  
  
Meggie: Mew. We like him and want our primary human to keep him--unlike his father, who never should have taken us on, but that's another story--but we should be able to claw him if we want to. It's a principle.   
  
Merlin and Memnet: Meow. We're thinking, we're thinking...  
  
AN: thediehard started it. Did so! Did so! 


	5. VP Pete Ross

"Man, your net worth beats out a lot of countries, you're considered a pretty good dresser, aside from that purple fetish, and there's water freely available," the Vice-President informed the President. "So why the cat spit instead of, say, soap?" He settled in a chair and fixed Lex Luthor with a "this had better be good" expression.   
  
Lex Luthor met it tranquilly. "Actually, the slightly acidic composition of-"  
  
"Okay, shouldn't have asked." Pete hadn't accepted the fact that Tisiphone regularly gave Lex's face and head a thorough cat grooming. Watching her rasp her tongue across his scalp, while Lex read, answered email, or talked over the phone, occasionally reaching up to pet her, still gave Pete a weird feeling on his own head.  
  
As if she knew exactly how thoroughly it gave him the willies, Tissy paused, gazed at him with a contemplative, even assessing gaze, and resumed. He fought the urge to shudder and started to talk business.  
  
"The Social Security folks took it pretty well." He paused and added, "Overall." Pete had been using his trademark, "That just doesn't make sense, folks" line to good effect in dealing with the Social Security Administration, commenting to the press as well as to Congress that it shouldn't be harder to prove a disability than to get a buddy contract. He followed up the GAO reports on inefficiency, fraud, and waste by going to an office and demanding to know exactly what they were doing, right then and there, to get rid of said inefficiency, fraud, and waste. "Those streamlined procedures are paying off. Takes two months now to get the average claim established."   
  
"Great." Lex stretched, and Tissy, annoyed that he had done so mid-lick, swatted him with a firm paw.   
  
"Lex, you really let that cat push you around."  
  
"'Let' isn't really the word. More that it's the mark of a wise man to know when certain things are inevitable."  
  
"And the occasional SenateHoles." Pete snickered to himself and Lex raised an eyebrow. Recognizing that Pete was going to make him ask, he let the silence go on just a bit longer. Pete figured that if he had to put up with the Senate, the least he was entitled to was milking the day's stories, after sending Lex the official notification of whether something had passed or no.  
  
"What did they do now?"  
  
"We got that pharma funding bill to pass, 52 to 48." The bill was one that made pharmaceutical company subsidies for new developments into loans. If the new drug turned a profit of more than twice the loan, the loan had to be repaid, if it didn't but was still valuable, then it didn't. Lex nodded.  
  
"Then the consumer tuna subsidies bill." He looked meaningfully at the three cats. "I explained just who was backing that one and that you might bring them in for another 'visit.' The final vote was 105 to zilch."  
  
"That's a bit irregular."  
  
"Yeah, some of them *really* wanted to make sure it passed." 


	6. Memo from the Secret Service Archives

Archivist's Note:  
  
Since this document reflects so much light on President Luthor's administration's interactions with other government branches, this material is cross-referenced from the Secret Service Archives  
  
Memo  
  
From: Nicole Pembrook, Executive Director  
  
To: All personnel  
  
Re: Operations management for Presidential security details  
  
1. All personnel should carry cat treats at all times, as a matter of personal safety. These treats should be deployed prior to confrontation escalation. After the incident with Agent Sanders, we have discontinued use of the cheap treats and now have a supply of gourmet treats. Agent Sanders, by the way, continues to recover and requested conveyance of her thanks for the balloon-o-gram.  
  
2. Classes will be held throughout next week on the subject of distinguishing Display of Cat Belly as Trap for Clawing from Display of Cat Belly as Demand for Petting. Since both displays present severe threats if misinterpreted, these classes are mandatory.  
  
3. We will discuss Agents' Kyoko, Miloff, Jensen, Hernandez, and Al-Tikal's proposal for realigning our services to distance protection for the President as opposed to a proximity presence. Suggestions for a proposal title other than "Those Damn Cats Wouldn't Let Anybody Near Him So He's Plenty Safe, Besides, I Don't Get Paid Enough for This" are welcomed.   
  
4. Remember--never interrupt the President while he is engaged reading the latest issue of Warrior Angel. Agent Munoz, by the way, sends his greetings from Siberia.   
  
Author's Note: Still as much thediehard's fault as mine! 


	7. GAO Director Chloe Sullivan

"Using finger puppets was not excessive! He'd lost the money and I was just pointing out the consequences!"  
  
Lex heard another voice, but too faintly to make out the words.  
  
"That's just his dirty mind. It's not like I had a choice. I didn't come into this world with the extra fingers module. Besides, it's the tallest finger. Anyway, gotta see Lex now. We'll have coffee sometime tomorrow, okay? I can tell you about the IRS."  
  
With the force and assurance of a espresso-addicted and very determined tornado, Chloe Sullivan came into the Oval Office. "Hi, Lex," she tossed over her shoulder, and then began the usual ritual of locking her briefcase, putting it into another locked bag, and putting it into a file drawer reserved for this purpose, then locking that. As she sat down, Alecto climbed into her lap. Lex had given up on commenting about the bond between the nosiest--Martha called it adventurous--of the cats and Chloe Sullivan, newly appointed director of the Government Accounting Office, the department that investigated and reported on all the other government agencies' doings.  
  
"Who's gotten skewered today?" There was a reason that since Chloe's appointment, the "Recent Reports" page on the GAO website was nicknamed "The Obits."  
  
"Well, the Pentagon's procurement office is on notice that if they don't find the missing four billion dollars from last year, and bring it all back this week, I'm going to start looking." After getting her due petting, Ally jumped off Chloe's lap.  
  
Lex nodded. His platform plank that cutting government waste and internal fraud would eliminate the deficit without cutting services was working out.  
  
"Did you put Clark out of his misery?" The NASA chief, seeing how busy Chloe was, had decided that the best way to track down waste in his own department was to do it himself. Fortunately, Lex had found him hunkering over Effectiveness and Efficiency for Dummies with an increasingly wretched expression on his face and had assured him that Chloe would work it into her schedule. Clark had looked terribly guilty when Lex put it that the waste in NASA was probably in the millions, not the billions, so it could wait a bit longer, so much so that Lex tracked down Earl Jenkins and asked him to sing "Turn, turn, turn," to Clark over the phone.  
  
"Yeah, we'll be going over things in May. That's my girl!" Ally had let out a triumphant "Maowwwww!" to announce that she had gotten into the file drawer, the outer case, and the briefcase, and returned to Chloe's lap. "Hey, what happened to her collar? One of the stones is gone."  
  
Lex rolled his eyes. "That's a remarkably unobservant question. Ally is doubtless what happened to her collar."  
  
Chloe, in response, narrowed her eyes. "No sneaking to the Hall of Gems and borrowing a replacement."  
  
"Certainly not!" After a pause, Lex added, "I can get better from Colombia if this one doesn't turn up."  
  
After an incident involving a photograph that Clark was, in Lex's opinion, far too gleeful about having taken and far too prone to share, he'd decided on a Luthorian type of revenge. He'd had Colombia's best emerald dealers come to him with their very best and largest stones, and selected the most vivid and brilliant, then sent them to Greece's best goldsmiths. The result had been three stunningly crafted collars for the cats.  
  
Clark's expression when he saw them headed towards him, with huge, gleaming, green stones adorning their necks, had been more than worth it. 


	8. The Furies on Christmas Eve

Had the President been looking in that direction, he'd have been on his guard. As it was, he was occupied in morose thoughts about a useless day spent in attempts to build peace between parties whose proclamations that they wanted peace were the shallow gleam of decomposition on top of sewage. The rot underneath was hatred, the desire for self-aggrandizement and gain, and a determination to plunge deeper into the vortex of revenge, all the while swearing that it was self-defense, patriotism, redress for wrongs, service to some deity, or some other age-old excuse. The ones who believed these lies were the most dangerous of all, self-righteously impervious to sane appeals.  
  
He jumped as a whisker tickled the back of his neck, and then Megaera arranged herself, feather boa-style, along his neck, nuzzling into his ear and rumbling a throaty purr against his ear. An instant later, Tisiphone was in his lap, paws planted on his chest as she rubbed her head under his chin, with an air of total absorption, occasionally breaking off to bestow a quick lick, and Alecto was insinuating herself under his hand so that it rested on her softest belly fur.  
  
"Okay, ladies, I get it," he murmured, "I get it."  
  
He knew that this attempt to bring some cheer and comfort was sincere.  
  
They'd waited until after he'd gone to the bathroom.  
  
AN: A season and new year of peace and sanity to us all.  
  
LC 


	9. GAO Director Chloe Sullivan returns The ...

Only a few minutes into their phone conversation, Lex suspected that Chloe was hiding something from him and from the world. A meteor mutation, to be specific. Nobody should be able to keep talking like that without a pause to draw a breath. The only thing to do was to wait until she asked a question and waited for the answer.  
  
"So I told him that his career was as trashed as the money that he'd wasted and that if he thought that we weren't going to investigate and sue, then he had an alarming lack of respect for the power of caffeine. Then he said that it was all underlings getting out of control but gave up on that line when I explained to him very carefully that keeping his underlings in control is part of his job and if he wants to go on admitting incompetency that's fine with me but that he might want to remember that the whole thing is on the record. I mean, not only to charge like that for the no-bid contract but to do triple-billings? Who does he think he's dealing with, the old administration, anyway? Then I wrote a memo for him about who's in charge now, and what do you think he had to say about that?"  
  
"I can just imagine." Before Chloe could tell him that his imagination was probably insufficient, he added a hasty, "Is the National Zoo actually functional enough to send Castor and Pollux there?"  
  
"Well, some of the analysis of how to do the releases is still going on, but yeah, they should be ready in a week or so."  
  
Lex looked over to where the Furies were waiting for their lunch. Sure enough, they'd heard him mention the other animals and were preening. Meggie was strutting in front of the door and Alecto and Tissy were sitting up in the poses that made Egyptian sculpted cats look as though they were slouching. When they broke into yowls, he assumed that their meal was approaching, which would mean that when his came later, he'd be left in peace to consume it. Relative peace, anyway.  
  
Circumstances had forced him to advance his plans for changing the National Zoo's mission. Aside from making it provide a far higher quality of life for the animals, he'd insisted that the zoo not acquire any more non- endangered animals. Those were replaced by astounding holographic models of the animals in their native environments, interacting with one another and the surroundings. Any endangered and threatened animals had to have, aside from lifelike natural environments, a genetically sound breeding program and a plan for reintroduction into the wild once their wild habitats were no longer threatened. External circumstances--greater and faster success in international and domestic wild habitat protection than he had anticipated-- and, he had to admit, certain personal circumstances, made it possible and certainly desirable to move more quickly.  
  
"I think I should include a donation history to the sealed archives," he mused, and Chloe gurgled in glee.  
  
"Oh, Lionel would so deserve that!" Lex's father hadn't been pleased that Lex's first Forbes cover story had included not just a mention of the Furies, but a photograph of them in Lex's office, with their usual air of owning it but graciously allowing him to visit. He'd been even less delighted when he read the human interest paragraph in which Lex declared that his father adored the cats, even called them his grandchildren. The only evidence he had for this declaration was that Lionel had gone quite speechless when Lex, in an elaborately planned casual mention, called the cats his "kids," but he considered that quite good enough evidence for a Forbes story.  
  
In what Lionel fondly imagined was a checkmate move, he'd one-upped Lex by having part of one of his estates adapted for the needs of a true ruler's cats: a magnificent pair of young lions. Naturally, he'd made sure that those were featured in Fortune's cover story on him, two months later.  
  
The elder Luthor had not made sure of a vital factor. The Furies didn't approve of a mere human, particularly Lionel, assuming that he'd won the battle.  
  
To be continued... 


	10. Furies versus Lionel, Game One You can ...

When Chloe had hung up, Lex decided to give himself a few moments to indulge in gleeful recollection. Meggie, having finished her lunch of fresh tuna steak, settled on his lap, rumbling happily as he stroked her.  
  
He was sure that she remembered just as well as he did.  
  
The first time he realized that something was up was when Enrique hesitantly approached him. "Mr. Luthor?"  
  
"Is something wrong?"  
  
"It's one of the cats. She brought me this." Lex looked at the hundred dollar bill that Enrique held out, then cocked his head and looked at it again. It didn't make much more sense that way, either. Enrique continued, "It was shortly after your father left. She came up to me with this in her teeth."  
  
"Which one was it?"  
  
"Ally." Now it was starting to make sense. Ally, with her inveterate habit of pawing into anything that caught her attention and her dislike of Lionel, a trait common to the Furies...it all made sense.  
  
Lex smirked. "Keep it. Consider her a generous tipper."  
  
He'd thought that that was the entirety of the story. Ally had snagged the bill out of Lionel's wallet and decided that Enrique might as well get an early bonus. But in Smallville, stories never ended quite where one might think they did.  
  
The next clue came when he passed by the security break room after meeting Clark in the kitchen after the produce delivery. Through the closed door, he could hear the sound of howling, roars, and solid slaps of flesh against flesh. After a moment of consternation, he could tell that it was from wild amusement rather than some kind of brawl, and could even make out a few words, "Whoooo! Go, Meggie!" "Tissy! You da cat!" "Goal!" Since he'd left the kittens happily demanding treats from the cook, a cat lover who doted on them, this didn't make much sense at all.  
  
Until he remembered that there was a VCR in there.  
  
Later that evening, he buzzed the head of security. He could, of course, have just gone into the break room, but that just wasn't as much fun. "I believe that there's something on last night's security tapes that I should view."  
  
"Yes, Mr. Luthor, I'll bring it to you right away." The barely suppressed amusement in the man's voice showed that he was on the right track. When he arrived, the comment that, "It's cued to the time that I think you're interested in," confirmed this.  
  
Lionel was just leaving one of the rooms on the upper floor with the usual action hero wanna-be flourish. The effect was somehow diluted by the two tabby kittens following him stealthily. As he reached the top of the stairs, they went into their hunting crouch, and just as he took his second step down, Tisiphone charged between his legs, while Ally leapt at his back. He whirled around and then Meggie ran towards him from the bottom of the stairs, clawing his trousers en route. Lex had to admire her command of applying the laws of physics--at the top of the stairs, she used her well- rounded bottom to spin and charge again. Ally, in the meantime, jumped to the banister that Lionel was grabbing as Tissy rammed the backs of his legs, and she landed, claws extended, on his hand.  
  
Probably muttering to himself that Luthors do not allow their progress down a flight of stairs to be disrupted by kittens, Lionel drew himself up and continued. Lex noted that the kittens were learning more about the enemy with each attack, and had discovered that the back of the knee is a weak spot for an opponent who is walking down the stairs.  
  
He thoroughly approved of their use of tactics. Ally, in another leap, was able to dishevel his hair to the point that it got in his eyes. They were excellent at covering one another, making sure that if one of them was within his range, another was launching a further attack. When they saw that he was flustered and off balance, they put their endgame plan into action. Meggie charged up the stairs, but at an angle, clawing his raised leg as she went by. Ally, in the same instant, attacked the back of his knee, and Tiss went right for--Lex's eyes widened--his groin.  
  
The outcome was inevitable. Lionel stumbled and slid down the remaining stairs, feet first. His jacket flew open and his wallet went flying. Ally seized upon it and clawed it until it disgorged its contents, and started to play kitty hockey with the credit cards. But not after dragging out half the cash, which she hid under the oriental rug for further reference.  
  
By the time Lionel had gotten to his feet, all three kittens had disappeared from sight. With what was left of his dignity, he retrieved his wallet and whatever contents he could find, and warily left the mansion.  
  
Lex wondered if he thought that the war was over. If he had, he was about to learn very differently. 


	11. Material from Archives Journal purported...

Archivist's Notes: This, like many other items dating from Pres. Luthor's administration, does not have a fully documented provenance, but does have a story associated with it. The story states that the author, a high- ranking NASA official, kept this journal for his or her private purposes, but that Pres. Luthor gave the owner a considerable sum to release this material to the National Archives, though permitted the expurgation of any material that would identify its authorship.  
  
The incumbent Archivist's opinion, based on internal indication, other documents, and certain memorable encounters with Pres. Luthor and Clark Kent, is that the explanation makes perfect sense and that the staff under Pres. Luthor had so much to cope with that they never would have had the time or inclination to make anything up.  
  
Extracts from document 11837560245  
  
Sept. 19. A difficult day for human relations management. Mr. Kent was in the construction room and a crane snapped while lifting the side of the new rocket. THE IDIOT CAUGHT IT WITH ONE HAND! Of course, the impact meant that it crumpled and had a huge hole where his hand went through, instead of landing on the ground with less damage from more distributed impact. Had to talk the staff out of painting the walls bright green with sparkles. Difficult when I wanted to tell half of them to go get the paint and the other half to go get rollers and brushes.  
  
Sept. 23. Increasing effort required not to let Kent guess that almost everybody in NASA knows that he's Superman. He's not stupid, in fact, he's fairly intelligent, but if he hadn't elevated cluelessness to an art form AND a lifestyle, he'd have guessed months ago. He's the zen monk of clueless.  
  
Sept 29. After huge scare yesterday (still shaking too much to write about it), instituted new policy. All staff required to wear highly-concealing, baggy clothing and cover hair when Kent comes anywhere near the fuel storage areas. Mandatory safety precaution.  
  
Oct 1. Luthor has his good points. A group of microcephalics was wandering around, saw new safety precaution in action, decided NASA was staffed with Muslim women and transvestite men, expressed outrage. Suggested they talk to Pres. Luthor and called VP Ross on emergency "Kent's done something" number. Ross perfectly happy to ask Luthor to see them and have cats present. Can still hear screaming and "get them off!" Good day. Heck, good day overalls. (I'm so funny.)  
  
Oct 4. Now calm enough to describe the incident. Kent was being conscientious, dammit, and inspected fuel storage area when Dr. Linbao Li walked by in very short skirt. Dr. Li, as noted earlier, features in dreams of approximately 60 percent of NASA staff, as determined by lunch table survey. If Alvaro hadn't had quick thinking to hit sprinklers, we'd all be floating around as little bits of ashes, except for Mr. Superman, of course.  
  
Oct 6. Took extreme measures to restore morale. Staff unanimously wanted to send suggestion to Kent for a huge meteorite exhibit covering entire Smithsonian Mall, drawing from the late Lionel Luthor's collection. I'm not saying that he's a bad administrator or that the staff dislike him, just that frustration levels mount every now and again. The thought of his face when he reads it reduced staff to helplessness and frustration to negligible.  
  
AN: Thediehard's active imagination produced much of this! 


	12. Paper trail

Note from the National Archivist  
  
These documents appear to be part of a collection of unofficial protocols during President Luthor's tenure. While they were produced from various departments, they are collected here, due to what seems to be their inter- related nature.  
  
From: The POTUS To: The directors of NASA and the GPO, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State  
  
I wish to clear up some misunderstandings.  
  
1. Charts of governmental structure, even those circulated solely internally, are not to show any of the following:  
  
The President reporting to the Men in Black, the Furies, Warrior Angel, or Martha Kent The director of NASA receiving departmental revenue from "The Makers of Spandex(" The Navy described as "fish procurement for those cats" (It only happened once and did not involve the entire Navy. Get over it.)  
  
2. The President's daily clothing choices are actually not subject to a two- thirds ratification by members of the Cabinet. Nor are any other issues related to dress.  
  
3. I know who the "internal source who requested anonymity" is. Furthermore, I did not do any kind of "very disturbing Lex dance" when the deficit was paid. I just got up and stretched, albeit vigorously. There's nothing wrong with humming while stretching.  
  
4. What are we giving Martha for her birthday?  
  
-----------------------------------------  
  
From: The directors of NASA and the GPO, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State To: The POTUS  
  
Mr. President,  
  
As your advisors, we wish to bring some matters to your attention.  
  
1. You put a moratorium on human cloning, aside from creating individual organs. Therefore, it is inadvisable for you to ask your Chief Science Advisor and your Constitutional Advisor to "just as a matter of theoretical interest, figure out if creating a clone would get around term limits." We get to hear things.  
  
2. The President is respectfully asked to bear in mind that he is in a position of great power, which means great responsibility. Should he muse out loud during a Department of Defense meeting that he wondered about making military vehicles into transformers, without mentioning that he wondered that when he was six years old, those listening may not be able to recognize it as a conversational item in this context, not a command. Should said POTUS then forget all about it and send the next morning's cost estimate back with a notation "What were you drinking, Cmdr. Rodriguez?" and ordering him to undergo a full physical and psychological examination, the situation is bound to get complicated.  
  
3. We don't think you've really forgotten about your diabolical plans to make purple the official dress uniform color for the Armed Services. Even if now you're just thinking shirts or ties. See reference to "we get to hear things."  
  
4. Let's talk over breakfast. 


	13. Clawings happen

Earlier...

_The kidnaper grinned to himself. He'd strolled right past security and located the target in the first room he checked. Piece of cake._

The Smallville Medical Center staff had seen quite a bit over the past years, but this went beyond anything the admissions crew had seen. "How about we just say 'Helluva lot of lacerations'?" suggested the Admissions Director. The clerk had learned, after just two days on the job, how to hack the software so that she could enter new codes, since the standard program just wasn't equipped for what they saw every day, and did just that.

Lex Luthor looked on dispassionately while Clark Kent stood next to him, wincing.

_He couldn't believe his luck. That Fortune article was going to make him a fortune. The smallest kitten rolled flirtatiously on her back, eyes wide open and trusting. He chuckled as he reached for her. "I didn't even need to spend that thirty-nine cents."_

_It had to be the easiest job on record. The article in Fortune had a picture of Lex Luthor with the three kittens on his desk and the caption said, "Oh, my father thinks of them as his grandchildren." Either Lex or his dad would pay hefty money to get them back, that was perfectly clear. _

_A few seconds later, a scream ripped through the night just like cat claws rip through human flesh, a particularly apt comparison given the circumstances._

A thought struck Clark, and this time, didn't bounce off because that whole invulnerability thing. "You know, Mom's probably going to send over more cream or something for 'those sweet kittens' after their ordeal."

"I'm sure you're right. The cook assured me that she'd look after 'the poor little things' and try to make sure they weren't too scared."

"I kind of feel sorry for him," Clark admitted as they walked to the parking lot.

Lex smiled tightly. "Never go on an attack without knowing the enemy, Clark." He paused. "They might just have chased him off if he hadn't tried to use cheap canned tuna as bait."


	14. The Press conference

"New guy, fifth row, left aisle seat. Who's he?" The Secret Service agent was a last-minute substitute to the Presidential press conference on the new space initiatives and hadn't gotten the full listing of attendees.

"Daoud Wadi. He's with _Space Developments_. First time here. Graduated Cairo University in journalism two years ago. Before that, he was a technical writer. Clearances perfect."

"Got it."

The agents continued to scan the room and it was a few moments before an alarming move from the reporter in question.

"Wadi. He's reaching down-"

"Oh, dear lord." Both agents readied themselves for the inevitable violence.

* * *

"Well, hello there." Daoud looked down at the soft-eyed grey cat who had patted his leg with her paw and emitted a plaintive mew. "Nobody's paying attention to you, hmm? Poor little thing, are you being neglected? Come on up." He scooped her up and installed her on his lap, where she mewed again and rubbed her chin against his lapel. "What's happened to your collar?" He carefully parted her fur and inspected the skin near the missing stone. "You didn't get into a fight, did you? No, nothing there, looks like it just fell out."

Meggie's sisters were finishing their own rounds of the room, which included jumping on Lois Lane's lap and licking her face; she detested the smell of tuna, which was what the White House chef had given them for breakfast.

"Clark, get these hairballs off me!" Clark had arrived early and was ostensibly mingling with the audience, though his activities consisted mostly of talking to her.

"No can do. They're part of Lex's staff, and it's against the law to interfere with a federal employee at his or her duties." Clark's deadpan broke at her glare.

"Smallville!" The cats haughtily vacated her lap, accidentally (of course) whapping her face with their tails as they jumped off, and Clark hurriedly left for the platform.

Lex made his entrance and several of the reporters wondered whether they should mention that something clearly disconcerted him as he scanned the room. He recovered his aplomb after taking a gulp of water and began to introduce the new exploration initiatives, then handed the conference over to Clark. The reporters also wondered whether to mention that the NASA administrator also seemed to lose his concentration a few times.

* * *

After the conference, Daoud had a problem. The little grey cat was so very comfortable in his lap and he hated to move her. The other two cats were lounging together on the chair next to his, which the reporter next to him had vacated the instant the cat came over. Daoud assumed he had allergies. In fact, several reporters had vacated the area, which was rather odd. Well, the purring was rather loud.

It wasn't just for the nice little cat's sake, though. He'd missed having a cat curled up on his lap or next to him since he'd had to put down Copernicus, his companion of fifteen years. A month was simply too early to start thinking about getting another cat, but getting to pet and fuss over these was just right. He realized that the room was empty except for a few Secret Service agents, who were talking over something quite heatedly. They shot him a glance and he realized that he had to leave. "Sorry, beauty," he whispered as he picked her up, gave her another quick petting, and put her down next to the others.

When he turned around, the NASA administrator was standing next to him, eyebrows raised quizzically. "Hi, I'm Clark Kent. You've met the President's cats, I see."

"Daoud Wadi. Science reporter for _Space Developments_."

Still on the platform, Lex Luthor checked his watch. A few minutes to the next appointment. Actually, meeting somebody the cats instantly snuggled up to was a priority, if only to appease Luthor curiosity.

* * *

A few months later.

"Here's the proposal I have for you." Lex Luthor leaned back, hands steepled.


	15. The New Book

"It was Martha Kent's idea. You recall the previous books about various pets in the White House? We'd like you to take the pictures and Martha would write the text for one about the Furies."

"It would be a pleasure." Daoud scratched the perfect spot on Meggie's chin and she extended it to platypus length.

"Just one thing. The photos should all be from their time in the White House. Let me know if Clark brings you any photos from earlier, and I'll explain. There are one or two that he particularly likes." _And he's not coming anywhere near the book with That Photograph. Superpowers or no superpowers. _

* * *

Eightmonths later.

_Our Life in the White House_, by Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, with assistance from Martha C. Kent and Daoud Wadi.

Lex sat with a pen, a glass of brandy, and the first book off the press. He'd cleared the entire evening for annotating the version that was going to the special Archives collection.

"We got to watch the peace treaty signing." And notice how all the signatories involved are keeping their distance from us. Some of them were still limping from the time they tried to walk out. We stopped them.

"We love to visit the Smithsonian Hall of Gems." By a strange coincidence, the emerald we're staring at was stolen the next week and later showed up around Ally's neck in a very intricate setting. The President was injured when he tried to remove it. Batman was the one who recovered the rest of the jewels and returned them via Secretary of Defense Bruce Wayne.

"Superman always comes to see us when he comes to the White House." Not many people know that there's a pocket in his cloak. He didn't know that we knew about it until he found a hairball in it.

"The GAO director keeps toys in her office for us. Ally just found one of them." Which was in a safe inside a locked cabinet behind locked steel doors, so it took me only two minutes to dig it out.

"Meggie sometimes visits the Supreme Court and say hello to the Justices." The reason you only see my tail is that I was under his robe, shredding his legs.

"The NASA director enjoys giving Tisiphone a ride on his shoulders." I just smacked him across the face with her tail to tell him to take me flying.

"The National Aquarium is one of our favorite places to visit." We think of it as a 3-D menu. After we pick out a fish, we make the President call the White House cook to tell her what to order for our dinner that night. Sometimes we mess with the President's mind by telling him we want an endangered species or one that only lives 3000 miles away or way down deep. Then he has to figure out a substitute or call Superman and ask him to please fly to the Amazon or Lake Victoria in Africa or go diving in the Mediterranean. Superman always makes fun of the President when he has to do that.

"The Vice President's desk is a great place to nap in the sun." The papers he was working on are artistically scattered on the floor. We sent some of the extra important ones under the credenza. He doesn't always like playing hide and seek as much as we do.

"The Federal Reserve Chair sometimes makes us treats in the White House kitchen." She thinks that we're sweet kitties, thanks to our excellent acting skills. This has to go down as one of the greatest deceptions in all history.

The final section was nothing but pictures, so Lex had a few more sips of brandy before getting ready to think of new captions instead of adding to existing ones. When he turned the page, the very first of the section got brandy spatters all over it when Lex saw that one he hadn't gone over with Daoud and Martha had somehow gotten in anyway.

"That does it, Clark. I'm going to change it to the Bright Green Glowing House."


	16. The interview was a bust

"So the President of the United States can keep his appointment, but Smallville had some kind of emergency and ditched me." Lois Lane sounded ten percent amused, ninety percent pissed.

"Ms. Lane-"

"And dammit, I just missed Superman by a few minutes, too." That was one hundred percent pissed.

"Ms. Lane, I'm sure that Clark had some excellent reason."

"I never _could_ rely on that man," she grumbled, looking out the window as though Superman just might come back. "Now, Superman, on the other hand..." Lex cleared his throat. "Well, since we can't do the Seek Out project interview-what the hell is that?"

Lex turned to where Lois was pointed. His bust of Alexander the Great was sporting a shredded tie and he crossed the room to examine it. "One of Clark Kent's, as it happens." He examined the red and blue pattern. "One of the cats' more justified acts of destruction." Well, he might as well try to appease Lois with a human interest story and turned on the charm with a crooked smile. "I've tried to explain to them that Alexander is a figure of epic importance in history, a man who ruled most of the known world during his time, was known for his brilliant strategy, his lust for exploration and for learning more about the world than any other man, as well as ruling more of it. While he could drive his enemies to annihilation, he could also be deeply magnanimous towards his defeated opponents and the spirit of generosity." He paused. "All those are reasons not to drape things over his head." He decided he'd almost gotten a snicker, and she had her notebook back out.

"What sorts of other things?"

"Hairballs. Shrimp shells. My headphones. A dandelion."

"A dandelion?"

"Three possible explanations. One, a commentary that Alexander was blond. Two, the word dandelion comes from the French 'dent de lion,' or lion tooth, after the shape of the leaf. Three, they just wanted to throw me for a loop."

"That's all?"

"By no means. A copy of an old map, covered with paw prints and other...editorial comments. Stones from their collars. My socks." Lex paused. "Other pieces of my clothing."

Lois couldn't cover up her chortle. "What color?"

He didn't think that underwear colors were at all relevant to reporters and gave her the repressive look that could control rooms full of rabid politicians, if the adjective isn't redundant. Naturally, it had no effect, so he continued.

"A strip of rather old smoked salmon they'd stashed away somewhere. Mistletoe. And before you ask, no, I didn't."

"What else?"

Lex hesitated. He'd left some out, of course. The Furies had once gotten hold of Chloe's underwear. (It wasn't pink.) They'd also once given several of Lionel's important papers a thorough dunking in their water bowls, until just enough print remained to identify their importance, and then plastered the bust in an almost paper mache effect. Oh, to hell with not interfering with matters of the heart. "Once they even got Superman's cape." Lois's eyes widened. "While he was wearing it." Lois needed to get a lot less starry-eyed about Clark Kent's alter ego and pay more attention to the real thing.

Now, if there had been a real Warrior Angel and she'd gotten a crush on him, _that_ would have been understandable.

* * *

AN: As always with these, TheDiehard is so very, very much to blame. 


	17. Allies, Strategies, and Small Defeats fo...

Notes from the Archives

President Luthor was nicknamed President Professor (a full collection of these nicknames is pending) by members of his Cabinet, due to his tendency to deliver brief lectures, primarily of a literary or historical nature. Most of these were verbal and impromptu, so not preserved except anecdotally, but some of them were captured, particularly those which the President illustrated from his collection of security videos or ones which Cabinet members recounted in email to other close colleagues. This, like similar reports, takes its title from the email heading of the most detailed descriptions.

Luthor Water Balloon War

Clark, you missed a great story. Your mom wasn't there so Lex let his hair down when he and Bruce were talking about protecting Navy ships from air-based piracy.

So this was early on, when Megaera was just barely six weeks or thereabouts. Lex was trying to get the Deadly Hairballs from dragging stuff onto his Alexander bust and thought that he'd come up with a great strategy. He got all these balloons (you do NOT get points for guessing what color) and made them into water balloons and put them all around and on top of Marble Man. Allie and Tiss ignored him, except for smacking him when they saw them, but Megs had a different idea. She poked and prodded and tapped at them, but cautiously, no claws or anything, and Lex was starting to think it wasn't going to work. Then she jumped on top of one of them and pop, you have one wet kitten. Lex was just about to throw himself a party when all of a sudden, your mom came in and Meg ran to her, literally crying. Lex didn't think he was going to survive.

So Bruce deadpanned that at least the Navy wouldn't have a problem filling the balloons, and things got pretty weird from there.

Chloe agrees, by the way, that Bruce has really got to share his toys and if he doesn't, she'll have all her Gotham contacts make it a front-page question: Bat Boxers or Bat Briefs? He's running scared, man.

* * *

AN: The Diehard bears responsibility in this fic.


	18. Nominee

From the Presidential Archives.

This email exchange between Secretary of Defense Bruce Wayne (SecDef) and President Lex Luthor (Potus) on the subject of his new director of the CIA was among the documents President Luthor gave to the Archives for general release after 30 years.

SecDef: You're out of your mind. I mean it.

Potus: She's perfectly qualified. I know from personal experience. She was constantly breaking into the mansion and never got caught.

SecDef: Whoop de doo. Lex, your mansion was the bunny slope of the breaking and entering world. The only admission requirement was a desire to concuss, maim, kidnap, or kill you. And I think the only reason you've appointed her is that the ones who came to concuss you succeeded a few times too many.

Potus: She could break in successfully _after_ the cats moved in. More importantly, she could get out unscathed. She also got vital secrets out of China for me.

SecDef: Wai Lin's recipe for clay pot duck was not a vital secret. Unless there's something you've not told me.

Potus: That's where you're mistaken. Lin wouldn't move his restaurant from Beijing, he wouldn't sell the recipe, my chef couldn't recreate it, and I couldn't send Clark there every time the cats wanted it. Aggravated Furies are bad at every level.

SecDef: That, I'll agree to.

Potus: The cats want her in the role, she's qualified, Clark will stop gulping or grinning every time she looks him up and down (I hope), and she'll do a good job. Selina Kyle it is.


	19. Cats, ballet, and video tape

AN: In case you were wondering how Jonathan and Lex became such good buddies...

Jonathan watched with an air of dour suspicion as Lex Luthor shut his car door and swaggered up to the farm house's back door.

"Hello, Mr. Kent, is Mrs. Kent in?"

"No, she's not, Lex. But if you have anything to say-" Jonathan paused for dramatic effect but Lex, irritatingly, went ahead.

"Good, because I have something I think you'll want to see, but it's better if she's not around."

"Are you making some kind of threat?"

Jonathan had expected some response other than giggling. A smirk, an air of wrongly accused innocence, a threat, but not a giggle. He didn't much like it and his expression must have shown it.

"Look, Mr. Kent, I just think you want to see this." Lex pulled out a DVD and Jonathan's heart sank. Was it video of Clark that showed his abilities? Jonathan folded his arms sternly and Lex sighed. "All right, if you aren't going to invite me in..." He retreated to his car and brought out a laptop, then inserted the disk.

Jonathan frowned as the video showed Lionel Luthor walking down some stairs in the mansion but relaxed as it showed him stumbling as a tabby kitten rammed him from behind. The video closed in on Lionel's indignant expression and then wiped to a shot of Lionel asleep with an almost impossibly small grey kitten sitting on his chest and drooling on his beard. "She'd just finished some of her treats," Lex explained, sotto voce. "She had perfect tuna breath." The next shot showed the same grey kitten on a dresser, very lightly waving her tail across a hair brush, and a closeup of the brush, showing the grey hairs that clung to it. "She shed just a few more in his brush each day."

Ballet music accompanied the next shots, a collection of the cats stealing food from a sputtering Lionel's plate. "Good editing job," Lex commented, still in a hushed voice. Jonathan nodded, almost hypnotized. "Though I'm not as sure about what they added here," Lex continued. The next shots returned to Lionel in bed, with one cat or another leaping onto his stomach, chest, or face, and off again just as quickly as the influential business magnate sat up each time with an indignant roar. The images were juxtaposed with ballet dancers making tremendous leaps across a stage.

Jonathan started to recover from the shock of what Lex Luthor was showing him and he startled to chuckle, then snicker, then guffaw, and finally howl at the subsequent images of the kittens tripping Lionel, ambushing and clawing his ankles, stealing his possessions and either disappearing with them or moving them to odd locations, and generally conducting successful guerrilla warfare. "Wait, show that last one again, the one where they, where they..." Jonathan wasn't able to finish his request but Lex seemed to know he meant the one where Allie hid on a bookshelf and smacked Lionel's head as he walked by.

By the time the video ended, Jonathan, without taking his eyes from the screen, had guided Lex into the living room where they sat and yelped with laughter. "The beautiful thing," Lex gasped, "is that it never gets old. I don't know how many times I've watched these, but each time..."

Jonathan heard the back door open and Clark came in, then blinked in bewilderment at the sight of his father and Lex holding their ribs, looking at one another, and cracking up again. "Oh, that one where all three girls are on top of him," Jonathan almost groaned.

He and Lex looked up and noticed Clark at about the same time. "Lex, you're showing him those security tapes, aren't you?" Lex took a moment to restore his breathing ability before he answered, "Specially edited version with..." and lost it again.

Jonathan checked his watch. It was much later than he'd thought. "Now, Lex, I can't promise it'll be any good, since Martha's out until later tonight, but if you've got time, you're welcome to stay for dinner."

If he'd had super-hearing, he'd have heard Clark whisper in Lex's ear, "Told you so."


	20. Health, drugs, and cats that claw

President Luthor cautiously picked up the phone. He never knew what to expect from this caller, but it was rarely anything normal.

"One of your cats just ate Steve McQueen!" Sure enough, not normal.

"Would you mind explain-"

"Oh, never mind, he was just lurking." Lex hung up and decided that even his drive to know everything had limits.

Dr. Gregory House hung up the phone on his end and watched the President's cat Meggie and his pet rat, Steve McQueen, darting back and forth at one another. Meggie dashed into the hall with the rat on her tail, and so House followed them. Especially since he had a meeting.

The head of DHHS watched the two animals cautiously. "Why are there a rat and a cat chasing one another down the hall?"

House attempted to look rueful. "Well, I tried to teach them volleyball, but they just prefer tag. No ambition."

* * *

Dr. Eric Foreman heard about it later. He considered hearing these kinds of stories his penance for having started the train of events that brought House to DC as the President's epidemiology advisor.

It all began with an innocent visit to his cousins, the Ross family, in Smallville, Kansas. He hadn't seen them for quite some time and had also heard the legends about the Smallville Medical Center and its bizarre cases. He hadn't known at the time that his trip coincided with pharmaceuticals billionaire Vogler's visit to Smallville to visit Lex Luthor. Luthor had described the visit to him.

Vogler was exerting all his efforts of persuasion to convince Lex Luthor that LexCorp would benefit from having drug patents extended indefinitely, "to be competitive with other industries." He wasn't having much success and sat back petulantly in his chair.

"Why won't you see the logic of this?"

Lex Luthor considered answering with the truth. "The cats won't let me because Martha Kent would be disappointed. If she's disappointed enough, the flow of treats might slow down. Or at least that's my hypothesis about why they threaten me with dire consequences." Instead, he replied, as smoothly as one of his favorite car's engines and with the same underlying purr, "It's not a priority for LexCorp or for me."

Meggie, the fluffiest and most innocent-looking of his cats, had purred and trilled her way onto Vogler's lap, despite his glares. As Vogler scowled, "You don't want to fight me over this," she positioned her back legs and delivered a solid, hard kick, claws fully extended, into a particularly vulnerable spot. Vogler howled in pain and bent over. The other two cats, Tissy and Allie, leaped onto him with the glee of a legislator in sight of PAC money, and gouged him with claws and teeth just like the legislator gouges constituents.

"You scared them," Lex said, reproachfully, as the Furies had extracted the last of the blood they wanted and Vogler got up, bleeding from several deep cuts and punctures.

"I'll...I'll sue you for this, Luthor."

"Really? I'm sure that from the security tapes, it looks as though you tried to kick that poor little cat as she got off your lap and then her sisters came to defend her. The press would have a field day with it."

Vogler pursed his lips and considered his options. Lex cut through his thoughts with a, "Here, I'll drive you to the medical center."

Foreman had been at the hospital when Vogler limped in. A few words persuaded the medical staff to insist on keeping Vogler overnight and a few more words had persuaded Lex to bring House in for a special consultation, which consisted entirely of House gloating, "Kitty cats? A few kitty cats did this?"

Lex Luthor couldn't ignore that kind of quality in taunting a fallen opponent and first appointed him as medical advisor to Congress. House's on-the-record speculations about whether senility or STDs were more likely the causes for some of the Congressmembers' votes had further won Lex's esteem as well as the cats' and so he was a shoo-in for Epidemology Advisor.


End file.
